


A Good Day To Fall Hard

by inkouragement



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Artist Steve, Bisexual Bucky, Bisexual Steve, Bucky and Natasha are Bros, Bucky is not subtle, First Meeting, Flirting, M/M, Movie Set, background actors, bad sci-fi, bucky has the metal arm, it's cringy, natasha is scary even when she's not an assassin, pre-serum steve, shameless fluff, steve is a terrible flirter, steve is incredibly awkward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-08 19:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5510939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkouragement/pseuds/inkouragement
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve takes a job as a background actor for a bad sci-fi movie. Bucky helps Steve, and they talk on the set. Steve develops a tiny crush and tries to flirt with Bucky to see if it's reciprocated.<br/>A tiny bit of bonus Christmas fluff at the end because I couldn't help myself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Day To Fall Hard

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the title is a (bad) pun on A Good Day To Die Hard. Yes, I know that's not actually a sci-fi movie. I'm bad at titles.

Steve didn't really know what the movie was about. He vaguely understood the plot- it's the future, there are aliens, a guy with a big gun and a disproportionally small brain saves the day- but it wasn't something he was particularly interested in. Steve preferred comedies, anyway. The only reason he'd auditioned was because he desperately needed money for rent and basic necessities like hot water and internet. His art business was not going great, but he was too stubborn to let the ridiculous amount of money he'd spent on getting an art degree go to waste just because some soul-sucking office job would have better pay. 

A tired-looking but chipper young woman in impossibly high heels took him to a trailer next to the set. She walked with an energetic bounce in her step and Steve found it hard to keep up with her. The woman tucked her neat, red hair behind her ear and told him to hurry up.  
“You were already late, and we haven't got all day,...” She paused to glance at the files on her clipboard. “Rogers,” she added with a small smile.  
They arrived at the trailer shortly after that, and the woman -Ms Potts, her name tag read- handed him over to yet another fatigued red-headed woman, who was fixing an extra's costume. Without even looking at him, she directed Steve to an empty chair in the back of the trailer.  
“Pep, my coffee.” It was a statement, not a question. 'Pep' responded with a nod and another smile, and handed her a cup. 

“Don't worry. She'll get to you in a second.”  
Steve turned around to see a handsome man in a make-up chair. Under a black barber's cloth he was wearing something resembling a spacesuit, but with gleaming metal spikes at the collar. It was sleeveless, baring the man's (rather impressive) biceps. Steve's attention was caught by the left arm, which looked like a robotic prosthetic, but it was hard to tell whether it was real or part of the costume. Steve decided that the suit would definitely be a safety hazard on a spaceship.  
He caught himself staring blankly at the guy's face and shook his head.  
“Great”, Steve finally replied. “To do what, exactly?”  
Ignoring Steve's question, the guy asked: “This your first time?”  
Steve decided to ignore the innuendo and nodded.  
“I'm Bucky.”  
“Steve,” Steve answered, and then grinned. “Nice outfit.”  
Bucky rolled his eyes. “They'll put you in something equally as ridiculous, you know. Nat gets her hands on you and before you know it, you're a cyborg clown or a slightly more punk-looking version of Henry the Eighth.”  
A low female voice cut him off, startling both Bucky and Steve. “I'll take that as a compliment, James. Just know that one more comment like that means you're trading places with one of Banner's guys down at full-body animals. Let's see how silly you find this costume, then.” Steve assumed that this was the 'Nat' Bucky had mentioned earlier. Bucky's eyes grew wide at her threat. “Please don't, Natasha," Bucky pleaded. “Those things reek of sweat and broken dreams and you know I'm not good with either.”  
Natasha chuckled and turned around to face Steve. She beamed at him, coming off slightly psychopathic.

“You're going to make a great space captain.”  
...

Steve had never worn make-up before in his life. The time at Peggy's birthday party didn't count, because they'd both been absolutely shitfaced and also because Peggy could be surprisingly intimidating. It made his skin feel strangely heavy, and the stripes of mud on his cheeks weren't doing much to make it feel more natural.  
“Stop touching it,” Bucky reprimanded, at the exact moment Steve got elbowed by a particularly enthusiastic extra in a lizard costume. The unnamed drink in the mug Steve had been ordered to hold spilled over his black camo pants. He hadn't been feeling the space camouflage in the first place, but wet space pants were infinitely worse than dry ones. Bucky quickly grabbed a few napkins and tried to dab up the still unidentified liquid, but then apparently realised he was inappropriately close to Steve's crotch. Flustered, he handed the napkins over to Steve. The cheeky grin returned almost instantaneously, and Steve snorted at the terrible joke Bucky made.  
“Is that beer on your pants, or are you just very happy to see me?”

The decor around them was stained and brown, but made to look so on purpose. This was a high-budget production after all, the conclusion to an extremely popular science-fiction trilogy that Steve, of course, had never heard of before in his life. They were sat on high bar stools, with their backs to the scene that was being shot. Steve felt like all the make-up he had on was rather pointless if his face wasn't even going to be in the frame, but Natasha had been adamant. She'd called him 'cute' and had insisted on putting layer upon layer of cosmetics on his face.  
They were supposed to be in a bar in space, and Steve was trying his best to look excited about it. That got more difficult with each take, because the actors kept messing up the choreography of the bar fight. All the extras had been instructed to be as stoic and unmoved by the fight going on behind them as possible, and at first Steve had been relieved. He had not felt up for anything that involved real acting, even though he had gotten through the auditions. Once half an hour had passed, however, Steve began wishing desperately for something, anything to do. Somewhere around the fifteenth take, Bucky had run out of dirty jokes to entertain Steve with, and around the seventeenth take, Steve was ready to punch the director in the face for rejecting what looked like perfectly decent bar brawl scenes. This was time he could have been spending working on his next big project, after all. Steve voiced his frustrations to Bucky.  
“That sucks, man. What're you working on?” Bucky actually seemed interested in what Steve had to say, which was a breath of fresh air. All he usually got was a tired speech about not being able to make a living as an artist.  
“It's a series of pieces on growing up in Brooklyn. Y'know, I grew up there, and I just really want people to see the different aspects of the place, and, well, its history.” Steve's voice had lost its confidence near the end of his sentence. Describing his art always made him feel nervous, because it made his ideas seems silly or simple. He wanted to show Bucky his art, not explain it to him.  
“That sounds great”, Bucky said. He sounded sincere, and just that alone made Steve want to kiss the guy. There were, of course, other reasons why Steve would've liked to kiss him (those eyes, his brain helpfully supplied. And those lips look really soft.) but he'd decided to ignore those for the moment. Bucky seemed decidedly straight.  
Bucky continued. “I grew up in Brooklyn too, actually. My family's been living there for four generations.”  
Steve whistled at that. “Maybe I could do a piece on you. You have a good face for, uh, portraits.” That may have been the most awkward thing Steve had ever said, but Bucky didn't seem to notice or care.  
“I bet you say that to all the fellas,” he smirked. Steve laughed in relief and placed his hands on the bar. Behind them, the director was once again calling for a do-over. Everyone groaned, but Steve was strangely relieved. He did not want their conversation to be over, yet. He enjoyed talking to Bucky. He enjoyed the way Bucky talked, all eyes sparkling and hands waving with enthusiasm, and yet also interested in what Steve had to say. Steve learned that the prosthetic was real, that Bucky had lost his arm in the army, and that they shared a passion for rom-coms and 40's movies.  
Their conversation went on and on, and for the first time in what had felt like forever, Steve felt like someone was not just hearing what he was saying, he was being listened to.  
A silence fell, but not an awkward one. They just sat there, listening to the sounds of the bar fight still going on. Steve zoned out a little, gazing off into space and nodding to the soft piano music playing from one of the speakers. After about fifteen seconds, he noticed Bucky staring at him. He looked up at him, and Bucky averted his eyes. “Sorry. Spaced out a bit.”  
Steve didn't care. Bucky could stare all he liked, even if Steve didn't quite understand what there was to see. “That's okay. I'm tired too.”  
“Yeah. Tired”, Bucky said, his gaze lingering on Steve. Steve could feel his cheeks redden, and for the first time after meeting Bucky he started to wonder whether the man was as straight as he had assumed. The way Bucky had been looking at him certainly suggested otherwise. So, Steve did what anyone would have done in this situation, which was finding out whether Bucky liked men by shamelessly hitting on him. Steve was too awkward to right-out ask Bucky, but he had picked up a thing or two about flirting over the years (he'd read a WikiHow article on the subject, so he was more than prepared). The first thing he tried was casually bumping their knees together. It didn't go quite as smoothly as Steve had hoped for, but the sudden contact did earn him the attention of his target. The target, also known as Bucky, widened his eyes a little.  
“I just wanted to say thank you for sitting with me. This would've been really boring without you”, Steve said, internally cursing his awkwardness. He tried to make eye contact, but Bucky wasn't looking at him. This called for desperate measures, so Steve decided to kick it up a notch. He moved his right hand, which was still resting on the bar to touch the cold metal hand next to it. Steve felt Bucky's hand shift slightly and then pull away. He was about to apologize for being inappropriate when Bucky placed the hand he had just removed on Steve's. Steve looked up at Bucky, who was grinning with amusement.  
“You coulda just asked for my number, idiot.”  
Steve turned bright red and was already starting to apologise when Bucky leaned forward. Steve could feel his warm breath on his face. “Wanna kiss me? Here's your chance.” Steve's heart sped up slightly but he did not waste time before leaning forward and pressing his lips to Bucky's. Bucky let out a surprised huff of breath and put his hand on Steve's shoulder for support. He softly bit Steve's lip and let out a quiet moan. They broke apart at last, and Bucky affectionately called Steve a punk and punched him in the shoulder. “I didn't think you'd actually do it, you shit,” he added, grinning.

The man in the lizard costume scoffed. “Jesus, about fuckin' time.”

They ignored the man and just sat there for a while, looking at each other. Bucky took Steve's hand again and kept holding it, and Steve couldn't help but feel giddy about it- almost like he was a teenager again, all pumped up on hormones and falling in love with any stranger who looked at him twice. It didn't feel silly, though, with Bucky. It just felt right. 

 

It was then that director Fury finally decided the scene was satisfactory, which provoked sighs of relief from both the crew and the actors.  
“That's a wrap, people! Good job everyone- except you, Stark. For Christ's sake, learn your lines!”  
And while the black and blue stuntmen rubbed their bruised bodies and the cameramen began packing their equipment, Bucky pulled Steve in for another kiss. 

“'N you'd better give me your number, too, you punk.”

 

7 months later:  
Steve was curled up in his sofa crease with his phone, listening to the sounds of Bucky preparing Christmas dinner in the kitchen. There was a lot of cursing, but not enough for Steve to find it worrisome yet. He smiled when he heard Bucky directing another string of expletives at the turkey stuffing, and scrolled on through Tumblr. He was about to close the app to help Bucky cook when he noticed number 17 of “17 Background Actors Who Have No Idea What They're Doing”. It was titled “These guys who seem to think they're on the set of Love Actually”.  
Under it was a .gif of the bar fight scene from Robots In Space III. There was a red circle around two guys in the background who looked suspiciously like- 

“Bucky! Get over here!”


End file.
